A clear majority for one of the two curious coalitions at the 20 November elections in Nepal may bring in much needed stability
25-11-2022
The tiny Himalayan country of Nepal went to the polls this past Sunday to elect members of both the federal House of Representatives and the seven provincial assemblies. Disillusionment with the successive bickering governments that the country voted into power since the end of the decade-long Maoist insurgency in 2006 found reflection in the fact that only about 61% of the 17.9 million eligible voters cast their votes at this election. This was a steep decrease from the 68% who exercised their franchise in the last elections in 2017, and the over 78 % who did so in 2013. No Prime Minister has served a full term in Nepal since 2006. While the results of these elections have only begun trickling in, and with the Chief Election Commissioner Dinesh Kumar Thapaliya saying that the final election results will be declared only by December 8, the people of Nepal will desperately be hoping that the elections bring in a government that is stable enough to circumvent the endemic political instability has characterized and been a recurrent feature of Nepal’s nascent polity, and to oversee and propel the development that their United Nations (UN)-classified least developed country so badly needs.
The House of Representatives of Nepal is a 275-member body, 165 of which are elected through direct voting while the remaining 110 are elected through a proportional electoral system. Similarly, of the 550 members of the provincial assemblies, 330 are elected directly and 220 through the proportional method. The composition of the two main alliances that are contesting the elections this time is odd in as much as they comprise ideological divergent political parties which have all been at odds with each other in the past. The ruling Nepali Congress (NC), a centrist democratic party, has formed an alliance headed by its Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba with the former Maoist guerrilla leader Pushpa Kamal Dahal, who now heads the Communist Party of Nepal – Maoist Centre (CPN-Maoist Centre), and who even years after the Maoist insurgency led by him came to an end is still better known by his nom de guerre Prachanda, which translates into ‘fierce’. The other parties that make up this coalition are the CPN-Unified Socialist, and the Terai-based Loktantrik Samajwadi Party. Opposing this alliance is another curiously crafted one – that led by former Prime Minister K. P. Sharma Oli, whose CPN (United Marxist Leninist) has allied with the pro-Palace and the pro-Hindu Rastriya Prajatantra Party (RPP), and with another Terai-based party, the Janata Samajwadi Party. While the main fight will be between these two alliances, several other smaller political parties are also in the fray. Further, of the total of 2,412 candidates contesting the elections for the federal Parliament, as many as 867 are independents.
In these elections, winnability concerns prompted by the perception that no single party can form the government has resulted in the forging of alliances minus ideology. The smaller parties and independents are, therefore, hoping to cash in on voters’ rising antipathy for mainstream political leaders. Political parties and their leaders now find themselves more unpopular than ever before because to the instability, lack of government accountability, and extreme levels of corruption that they have lorded over for decades. Nepal’s economic prospects have been harmed by the decline in governmental authority and the growing distrust of the judiciary. As the seasoned Nepali journalist Yubaraj Ghimire pointed out in his 19 November article in The Indian Express, Nepal has seen 32 governments in as many years of democratic exercise since 1990 — and 10 governments in the 14 years since the monarchy was abolished in 2008. The country’s leaders had then made collective promises of a “stable government, consolidation of democracy, economic prosperity, and corruption free governance”, but they now stand discredited.
Nepal is one of the world’s poorest countries and its economy depends on foreign aid, tourism and remittances from its overseas workers. Western aid comprises more than 30 percent of its annual budget. The new government will face the challenge of reviving the economy and curbing high prices at a time of fears that a global recession might reduce remittances, which account for about a quarter of the gross domestic product (GDP). Approximately 500,000 young Nepalis depart the nation each year to work as labourers in the Gulf, and more than a hundred of them die abroad each month, according to government statistics.
Empty pre-election political promises to double or quadruple the GDP would not have enamored Nepali youth who have for long been struggling under the weight of rising unemployment and rampant inflation. Retail inflation has been hovering at six-year highs of about eight percent in a nation where one in five people live on less than $2 a day. Incessant political instability has also discouraged investors. Tourism, which contributed four percent to the GDP before the pandemic, has yet to fully recover. About 450,000 tourists visited Nepal in the first 10 months of this year, which is less than half the number seen in the whole of 2019, before COVID wreaked havoc. Foreign reserves are, consequently, shrinking. According to the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the $38 billion economy is expected to expand by 4.7% in the current fiscal year starting in mid-July, down from the previous year’s estimate of 5.8%.
In their election manifestos, political parties have promised to bring down interest rates, provide free medical services, improve transport, and boost the economy over the next five years. The Nepali Congress party has promised to create 250,000 jobs every year if it is returned to power, while the main opposition CPN (UML) has pledged to create 500,000 jobs each year. Going by past experience, many Nepalis believe that such promises will not count for much once the elections are done and dusted.
As for which grouping is likely to emerge victorious when the election results are finally declared by the 8th of December, The Kathmandu Post, citing internal assessments by the parties and security agencies, reported that the Nepali Congress is likely to emerge as the single largest party. It had also won the most votes in the local elections that were held earlier this year. The Wire, meanwhile, reported that according to some calculations the NC could win between 100 to 110 parliamentary seats, compared to the 63 it had won in 2017. The CPN (UML)’s tally is projected to come down from 121 in 2017 to double figures, dropping to around 75 to 80 seats. In Al Jazeera’s assessment too, “the ruling coalition, led by the centrist Nepali Congress party, is expected to win”. Since all opinion and exit polls are banned under the election code of conduct in Nepal, venturing more informed numbers and figures is a difficult proposition. Nevertheless, the issues of serious corruption charges against his government when it was in power, internal divisions within the party, and his attempts to dissolve the Parliament have dented the popularity of K.P. Oli and his CPN (UML).
Anshuman Behera, Associate Professor in the Conflict Resolution and Peace Research Programme at the National Institute of Advanced Studies (NIAS) in Bengaluru, noted in his 20 November piece in the Raisina Debates section of the New Delhi headquartered independent think tank the Observer Research Foundation (ORF), that “The territorial assertion, as an important source of political posturing, is seen to be a commonality between the opposition parties despite their divergence of positions about India and China. A close look at the election manifesto of the political parties reveals that along with the promises made on the internal political and economic issues, the big-ticket international issues are being hotly debated in the run-up to the election in Nepal. It came as no surprise that the CPN-UML raised the issue of Nepal’s territorial integrity about its southern neighbour, India. Declaring himself as the only leader who stood up to the pressures of India and adopted new maps for Nepal that included some areas under alleged Indian occupation, KP Oli claims to reclaim the ‘Nepal territory’ that is under the latter’s control. The territorial assertions of KP Oli have not offered him much, other than mere posturing. On the contrary, the Nepali Congress has raised Nepal’s territorial disputes with China in its election manifesto. The territorial assertion, as an important source of political posturing, is seen to be a commonality between the opposition parties despite their divergence of positions about India and China”.
Al Jazeera also pointed out that neighbouring India and China, with their strategic and economic interests in Nepal, will be watching the election results closely. India has long had strong political, social and economic ties with Nepal, which K.P. Oli has sought to upend for the benefit of China. Many Nepalis fear that the infrastructure projects that China has signed with Nepal under its vast Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), and which envisages linking Kathmandu with Lhasa through a trans-Himalayan railway network, is part of China’s now well recognized debt trap diplomacy. They contrast this with the decades of unilateral and unencumbered assistance that India has provided to generations of Nepalis, especially in times of difficulty, with New Delhi’s support to Kathmandu during the COVID-19 pandemic and the billions worth of electricity exports from Nepal to India being recent examples.
In any case, despite recent high profile visits by high ranking Chinese officials, including by President Xi Jinping, aimed at ensnaring Nepal in the BRI and keeping the Communist flock in the country together, that the CPN (UML) broke up into several smaller parties and the CPN (UML) government could not be saved is reflective of the shrinking Chinese influence in Nepali politics. As Yubaraj Ghimire put it, “Since 2006, China has worked towards becoming a major player in Nepal — increasing its investments in multiple sectors, and then seeking a favourable regime in Kathmandu. As tensions rose with India, Oli’s government signed a trade and transit treaty with China in 2016, President Xi Jinping visited Nepal in October 2019, and in September 2022, ahead of the National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party, National Assembly chief Li Zhanshu held talks with Nepal’s leaders, including Oli and Prachanda”. These talks and directives were of no avail.
To conclude, despite the general air of negativity surrounding the 20 November elections in Nepal, it needs to be underlined that mere adherence to the democratic exercise holds significant promise for democracy in Nepal and South Asia, and a clear majority to one of the competing alliances will be the most appropriate result as that would give Nepalis the best shot at the stability and development that they so desperately need and deserve.
